0000000000141186

AUTHOR

Roberta Alfieri

Irreversible Inhibition of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Activity by 3-Aminopropanamides

Irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors contain a reactive warhead which covalently interacts with a conserved cysteine residue in the kinase domain. The acrylamide fragment, a commonly employed warhead, effectively alkylates Cys797 of EGFR, but its reactivity can cause rapid metabolic deactivation or nonspecific reactions with off-targets. We describe here a new series of irreversible inhibitors containing a 3-aminopropanamide linked in position 6 to 4-anilinoquinazoline or 4-anilinoquinoline-3- carbonitrile driving portions. Some of these compounds proved to be as efficient as their acrylamide analogues in inhibiting EGFR-TK (TK = tyrosine kinase) autophosphorylati…

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Hypertonic Stress and Amino Acid Deprivation Both Increase Expression of mRNA for Amino Acid Transport System A

The activity of amino acid transport system A ([Oxender and Christensen, 1963][1]) is regulated in a variety of different ways, the best studied being the increases of its activity caused by starving cells of amino acids or by exposing them to hypertonicity (for review see [McGivan and Pastor-

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Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and breast cancer: Beyond the prognostic and predictive utility

The importance of the immune system as a potent anti-tumor defense has been consolidated in recent times, and novel immune-related therapies are today demonstrating a strong clinical benefit in the setting of several solid neoplasms. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes reflect the attempt of the host to eradicate malignancies, and during the last decades, they have been shown to possess an interesting prognostic utility for breast cancer, especially in case of HER2 positive and triple-negative molecular subtypes. In parallel, the clinical evaluation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes has been shown to effectively predict treatment outcomes in both neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings. Currently, tu…

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Stabilization of hsp70 mRNA on prolonged cell exposure to hypertonicity

AbstractProlonged exposure of 3T3 cells to 0.5 osM hypertonic medium induced the accumulation of hsp70 mRNAs. This increase in mRNA levels required active protein synthesis. A weak and transient activation of heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) was noted, but it was temporally uncoupled to the accumulation of the hsp70 mRNAs. Nuclear run-on assay and transfection experiments showed that hsp70 gene transcription was not affected by hypertonicity. ActD chase experiments showed that during hypertonic treatment, degradation of hsp70 mRNAs was markedly reduced. This effect did not appear to be a general phenomenon since the increase in mRNA level of another gene induced by hypertonicity (ATA2 transporter…

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Improvement of ALT decay kinetics by all-oral HCV treatment: Role of NS5A inhibitors and differences with IFN-based regimens

Background Intracellular HCV-RNA reduction is a proposed mechanism of action of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), alternative to hepatocytes elimination by pegylated-interferon plus ribavirin (PR). We modeled ALT and HCV-RNA kinetics in cirrhotic patients treated with currently-used all-DAA combinations to evaluate their mode of action and cytotoxicity compared with telaprevir (TVR)+PR. Study design Mathematical modeling of ALT and HCV-RNA kinetics was performed in 111 HCV-1 cirrhotic patients, 81 treated with all-DAA regimens and 30 with TVR+PR. Kinetic-models and Cox-analysis were used to assess determinants of ALT-decay and normalization. Results HCV-RNA kinetics was biphasic, reflecting …

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